Oxygen generation, or oxygen separation, respectively, plays an important role in different application areas, covering for example the generation of high purity oxygen, and partial oxidation reactions of hydrocarbons in reactors. The production of high purity oxygen is also of particular interest for small, low noise oxygen generators for medical applications such as home healthcare applications.
Oxygen therapy, for example, is the administration of oxygen as a therapeutic modality. Oxygen therapy benefits the patient by increasing the supply of oxygen to the lungs and thereby increasing the availability of oxygen to the body tissues. The main homecare application of oxygen therapy is for patients with severe chronic obstructive pulmonary diesease (COPD), a disease that effects more than 13 million patients in the US, for example.
For on-demand generation of oxygen, commercial solutions, so-called oxygen concentrators are known. Philips Respironics, for example, is offering a family of oxygen concentrator products for patients requiring oxygen therapy at home (EverFlo) and on the move (EverGo). Such systems may be based on a pressure swing adsorption process.
Such a pressure swing adsorption process is further known from U.S. Pat. No. 6,551,384 B1, for example. This document discloses a pressure swing adsorption method using a two-bed apparatus. Such a method comprises the following steps: simultaneous feed and product pressurization; adsorption; equalization; evacuation; evacuation and purge; simultaneous equalization and feed.
There is, however, still the need for improvements especially regarding an on-demand generation of oxygen.